Private Affairs

by Tori Carrington

  “Maybe he…”

  He waited. “Don’t make excuses for him, Penelope. My mother used to do it. I couldn’t bear that.”

  “No. No excuses.” She drew in a deep breath. “Do you know what set him off?”

  He thought about it now. He hadn’t considered it at the time. Then he looked up into her shadowy face. “He’d thought I left.”

  “He’s not the only one…”

  PENELOPE’S CHEST FELT LIKE it might collapse in on itself. She hurt for Palmer in a way that manifested itself as an almost physical pain. As if she had momentarily experienced every blow he had suffered as a child.

  She’d been heartbroken when she’d learned what he’d suffered through. He’d been gone a full two years before her grandmother had mentioned something about Palmer’s father’s temper. He’d gotten into an argument of some sort with the gas station attendant and had been arrested for assault.

  It was then that her grandmother had shared what it seemed everyone but she had known.

  She couldn’t imagine not having anyone else in the world. Oh, her mother might be flighty, but her grandmother and great-aunt had always been there.

  Palmer on the other hand…

  “After your mother died, you really didn’t have anyone, did you?” she whispered.

  He coughed quietly. “I had you.”

  Palmer’s hair was tousled as if he’d run his hands through it; his shirt was wrinkled; his face looked drawn as if he hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep for perhaps longer than she had.

  But that wasn’t possible. Because she had fifteen years of sleepless nights on him.

  A small voice supplied a litany of reasons why she shouldn’t tell him her news now. Shouldn’t reveal the secret she’d kept for so very long. He looked as if he’d been to hell already; she didn’t have it in her to send him back there so quickly.

  “Penelope.” Her name exited his mouth like a melodious note.

  Her stomach tightened and need instantly pooled in her lower belly, providing her with even more reasons to delay the inevitable…

  Instead, she slid her hand slowly from his. “I have something to tell you, Palmer…” Penelope didn’t have a choice. If she didn’t tell him now, she was afraid she might never do it.

  Spit it out. Before you lose your nerve again and give in to the desire to kiss him.

  “You might want to brace yourself for this…”

  “This is that thing from the pub, isn’t it?” he asked. “The thing you had to tell me and didn’t.”

  She looked down into her lap and nodded.

  “And you want to tell me now.”

  The statement was almost accusatory. She met his gaze. “I’m sorry that it has to come now…like this. But I…well, your father wasn’t the only one who’d thought you’d left again. I…I did, too.”

  Everyone had. The buzz was all over town that he’d driven straight out of town the same way he had before.

  “I’ve tried to tell you a thousand different ways. Wished I could have told you sooner.” The weight of her admission weighed against her chest like a cannonball. “I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no right place, right way to say what I have to, Palmer. I’m sorry if it’s the last thing you want to hear. I have to say it. I’ve kept it to myself for far too long.” Her throat tried to refuse her a breath. “You deserve to know.”

  Her words seemed to ring through the gazebo and then drop like bricks on the wood floor between them.

  “Penelope…”

  “No, please. Don’t. I’m going to say it. Just give me a second.”

  Outside, she heard Thor panting. The sound of clinking silverware. A train horn from out on the other side of Old Man Benson’s cornfields.

  And her heart thundered so loud it nearly deafened her.

  “Palmer, I…when you left fifteen years ago…”

  Damnit, just say the words!

  He shifted uncomfortably. “This goes back fifteen years?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Yes, it does. You see, when you shared the news that you were leaving back then, everything was fine. I knew it was something you had to do. You’d dreamed about heading off on your own and making a name for yourself….”

  “I asked you to come.”

  She laughed without humor. “I know. And I thought about it. Really, I did. I would have liked nothing better than to have packed everything and run away with you…”

  “But…?”

  “But…I couldn’t. Three months before you were to go I…found out I was pregnant.”

  His quick intake of breath stole every sound from the air around them.

  There. She had said it. Finally. She’d told him.

  And she felt worse than she’d thought she might. Far worse. As if her very skin had been stripped from her body and there was nowhere for her to hide.

  “I don’t understand,” he said so quietly she nearly didn’t hear him. “Are you saying you were pregnant…with my…with our child?”

  She nodded and looked down to find her hands clenched so tightly in her lap they’d lost feeling.

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  She shook her head. “I…I couldn’t. You were so excited. You had all your plans laid carefully out.” Her voice caught. “Every day you outlined what you were going to do, where you were going to go and how you would get there…”

  Silence.

  It seemed to drag out forever as she waited for his response.

  “What happened to the baby?”

  There it was. The question she had dreaded. The question that rang in her ears for the past fifteen years.

  “He…our son…your son…was born on March 15th…and I gave him up for adoption.”

  20

  “I’M SORRY…SO VERY SORRY…” Penelope’s words sliced into his ear like needles he couldn’t remove. “I didn’t know what to do. You were so happy. So hopeful. Pursuing a dream you’d spent your whole life planning. I just couldn’t ruin it for you…”

  He saw the tears rolling down Penelope’s face, how they glistened in the dim light, but he was too shocked to comfort her. He was too busy trying to find a way to swallow the secret she was sharing with him. A secret she’d kept from him for fifteen years.

  “My grandmother…my aunt… They helped me. I stayed with friends in Seattle when I started showing. The story was I had a summer internship, so nobody knew, although I’m sure a few guessed…”

  Palmer grabbed her arms as if to stop her from leaving, but she hadn’t made a move to go anywhere. “Stop! Don’t say another word. Please…just be quiet for a moment.”

  It didn’t make any sense. None of it.

  How was it possible that he had a child out there, a son, and hadn’t known about him? How could Penelope have done what she had without telling him?

  Surprise, grief, betrayal slashed through him like a knife, threatening what was already a tenuous hold he had on the current reality of his life.

  He didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to know. Why was she telling him this? Why was she saying this now?

  He had a fourteen-year-old son out there…somewhere…

  He finally focused on Penelope’s pale face, noting the fear there. Hating that he had inspired it. On the heels of what he’d shared about his father, he could only imagine what was going through her mind.

  And she might have been right. Because in that one moment Palmer felt an urge greater than any he’d ever experienced to lash out at something physically. To release the roiling emotions that nearly overwhelmed him.

  He released her instead.

  She sat back.

  He got up.

  “Palmer, please,” she pled.

  “I…I have to go…”

  “I need for you to understand…”

  But it was too much for him to take in all at once. He needed time. Space to think. The chance to absorb all that was said.

  And an urgent need to leave Earnest, Washington, all over
again. This time for good.

  PALMER WASN’T PAYING ATTENTION to how fast he was going. He just drove down the darkened highway, his hands so tight on the wheel, his knuckles appeared about to emerge through his skin. He shouldn’t have been surprised when he heard the burst of a siren and spotted the flashing lights behind him.

  He hit the steering wheel with his palm. Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

  He considered outrunning the sheriff who no doubt had revenge on his mind. Experience told him that he wouldn’t chase him outside county lines.

  Instead, he forced his foot off the gas pedal and coasted to a stop on the right side of the road, flicking on his hazard lights.

  It seemed to take forever for the sheriff to get out of his car. Despite the darkness, he wore mirrored sunglasses and had put on his hat. He looked like a Hollywood movie cliché as he sauntered up to the driver’s side window and shined a bright flashlight inside, blinding Palmer as he checked out the interior of the car.

  Palmer offered up his license and registration on the leased Mercedes.

  “Do you know how fast you were going?” Barnaby asked.

  “No, sir. I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

  The sheriff looked over the document in his hand. “You don’t own the vehicle.”

  “No, sir.”

  In fact, it had emerged that he had nothing of a permanent nature in Earnest. Everything was leased or borrowed.

  Or had been stolen away.

  It would be all too easy to just accept the ticket he knew he was about to get and just keep moving. Drive up to Seattle, to the airport, not stopping until he was safely in the Northeast, back to the life he had forged for himself, the life he knew.

  “Where you going?” Barnaby asked.

  “Seattle.”

  He nodded and handed the documents back to him. “Watch your speed from here on out.”

  Palmer squinted at him, watching as he switched off his flashlight and turned back toward his car.

  “You’re not going to issue me a ticket?”

  Barnaby stopped. “Why? Do you want one?”

  For reasons he couldn’t pin down, he felt like he deserved one. “No.”

  “Then I’m letting you go with a warning.” He continued walking back toward his car.

  “Barnaby?”

  “If you don’t leave in the next five seconds, DeVoe, I am going to issue you that ticket.”

  “I just wanted to say thank you,” he said. “And to ask you to look out after Penelope.”

  The sheriff froze, flashlight tapping against the side of his leg. “That’s no longer my job, DeVoe. It’s yours.”

  He got into his car, shut off his blinking lights, and drove around Palmer as he sat at the side of the road.

  “RISE AND SHINE, SLEEPYHEAD. The sun is smiling.”

  “Tell it to go away.” Penelope burrowed further down under the covers. She didn’t want to get up. She just wanted to lie in bed until the world started spinning correctly on its axis again. When she could accurately interpret how Palmer had taken the news. When she could stop feeling so guilty her skin felt sticky with it.

  “It’s been two days. Don’t you think it’s long past time you sucked it up and got on with your life again?” her grandmother asked. “Your aunt and I can’t make heads or tails out of your shipping system at the shop. And, frankly, we’re getting a little tired of opening for you.”

  “So don’t. I didn’t ask you to.”

  She felt her mattress shift and guessed Agatha had sat down on it. “Well, at least you’re speaking. That’s a start. I might not like what you’re saying, but that’s nothing new.”

  Penelope squeezed her eyes shut, wishing her away.

  “You didn’t think it would be easy, did you?”

  The words penetrated the covers and invaded her ears. She blinked her eyes open, remembering Palmer’s look of anguish when she’d told him they had a son.

  Raw pain washed over her anew, and she felt like throwing up.

  “How did you know I told him?” she whispered.

  “Surely you jest, child. Haven’t you figured out that I know everything by now?”

  She lay still.

  “Okay, I saw you two in the gazebo. And then you dove straight for your bed from which you’ve yet to emerge. So that means either you’re boycotting the increasing price of postage stamps, or you finally told the man he’s a father.”

  Penelope bit hard on her bottom lip.

  Her grandmother smacked her hip. “I’m going to go make some of my world famous French toast. If you want a piece, I suggest you get up and take a shower first. You stink.”

  The weight lifted from the bed and then she heard her door close. Penelope didn’t trust that her grandmother was not still in the room so she didn’t move for a long moment, listening for sounds. The ones she heard came from the direction of the kitchen.

  She rolled over to her back and pulled the covers down with a jerk but didn’t get up. Instead, she stared intently at the ceiling that was in dire need of a coat of paint…and that she prayed would somehow offer up the answers she was seeking.

  So caught up had she been in summoning up the courage to tell Palmer her secret, she had been woefully unprepared for what his reaction might be. How stupid of her. How dumb she’d been not to be ready to offer him some sort of reassurance. Done something, anything, to stop him from leaving her alone in the gazebo.

  Stop him from leaving Earnest.

  She recalled yesterday morning’s visit from Barnaby. Oh, she hadn’t spoken to him. Instead, she’d listened as her grandmother and aunt fussed over him in the living room, offering him coffee, breakfast or whatever his li’l heart desired if he’d just stick around until Penelope got up.

  But Penelope had had no intention of getting up. Especially not since she’d heard Barnaby say that he’d pulled Palmer over on his way out of town the night before…and that he’d asked Barnaby to look after her.

  The sheriff, apparently, had feared there was something wrong, thus the reason for his visit.

  There was something wrong, Penelope thought now. But it wasn’t something a sheriff, a grandmother or a great-aunt could fix. And this particular repair also appeared to lie outside her own range of expertise.

  The sweet scent of cinnamon teased her nostrils. She groaned and pulled the covers back up. But there were a few things a mortal being wasn’t capable of resisting. And her grandmother’s French toast was one of them…

  PALMER HAD SAT AT THE SIDE of the road for an hour, his hazards blinking, absently watching the moon rise, willing the pain inside him away.

  How easy it would be to leave. To just keep on going. To put behind him that chaos.

  He’d come back to Earnest with so much hope for the future. Hope that had grown when Penelope had welcomed him back, and his father had briefly accepted his presence in his house.

  How had it all turned so completely, utterly bad?

  He’d started the car back up, and heedless of Barnaby’s warning, had flattened the gas pedal, heading in the same direction he had been, watching Earnest’s few lights get dimmer and dimmer in his rearview mirror.

  Then he’d experienced something he hadn’t expected. Something that had caused him to stand on the brakes, stopping in the middle of the road after the car had skidded.

  He’d known a sick sense of what it must have been like for Penelope all those years ago.

  Pregnant.

  Alone.

  The father of her child on his way out of town to follow a dream of wealth and success.

  How could he have been so blind? How could he have missed the signs? With the hindsight of twenty-twenty vision, he’d recalled the way her demeanor had changed in the months before his departure. How she had appeared more wan and seemed sick a lot of the time. He’d been so consumed with his own plans, he hadn’t stopped to take a good look at her. Had taken at face value her reassurances that she couldn’t possibly come with him, and t
hat she was only missing him already.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Then there was the boy…

  “It was the only thing I could think to do,” she’d told him in the gazebo before he’d shut her down. “I was only eighteen, with two crazy old women in my life. What was I going to do with a baby who deserved two loving parents? A family in a position to offer him everything neither of us had had? A family that couldn’t have children of their own and who would love him even more because he was a child they had chosen…”

  A horn had honked as a pickup had come up behind him and then tentatively passed him before continuing on.

  “There are days when I regret my decision,” she’d whispered. “And there isn’t a second that goes by that I don’t feel his presence out there somewhere. That I don’t love him and wonder what he’s doing at that exact moment…”

  She’d gone on to explain how she’d registered her name and contact information with various agencies to make it easier for their son in case he wanted to find her. It was the main reason she’d purchased computer equipment and hooked her business up to the internet. While the café was slow, she checked the pages she’d posted on adoption sites and bulletin boards stating the name of their son, his birthday, along with a message of love and an invitation to seek her out.

  So far there had been no word, she’d said. But she knew that one day he would want to know the truth. And she wanted to be there to give it to him.

  “And me?” Palmer had asked, his ears still ringing with her admission. “What had you planned to tell him about me?”

  She’d looked down. “I don’t know. I figured I’d know what to do when the time came…”

  She’d blinked up at him. “I suppose that decision is now up to you.”

  Palmer’s mind had gone blank then, as dark as the two-lane highway that stretched outside his windshield.

  Without being aware that he’d made the decision, he’d put the car in gear, turning back toward Earnest.

  Come what may, he had to see this through.

  And he had to tell Penelope how sorry he was for having left her all those years before.